The Methods of Self Psychology

June 19, 1986

Dr. Philip Holzman, in his essay "Psychoanalysis: Is the Therapy Destroying the Science?" (This Journal,  33: 725-770)↗ says: "Kohut and the self psychology school insist that the methods of psychoanalysis are those of intuition, introspection and empathy" (p. 754). No citations or references in support of this assertion are given; the allegation is repeated on p. 755. In the references attached to his article, Dr. Holzman includes two books written by Kohut, The Analysis of the Self(1971), and The Restoration of the Self(1977); it is reasonable to assume that here one might find those statements by Kohut that support Dr. Holzman's indictment of self psychology. If it were indeed the case that Kohut and those who find his contributions to psychoanalysis useful subscribe to the idea that, in addition to empathy and introspection, intuition (defined by Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary as "la: immediate apprehension or cognition; lc: the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without rational thought and inference") is basic to gathering the data from which self-psychologically oriented interpretations are made, then Holzman would be correct in his condemnation of self psychology as un- or antiscientific. However, Dr. Holzman's claim regarding self psychology is apparently based on a misreading of the text as Kohut, in the books that Dr. Holzman used to reach his conclusion, takes pains to definitely disassociate himself from both the notion that intuition can be equated with empathy, or that it can be relied upon by the psychoanalyst when gathering his or her data. The pertinent excerpts from these two books read: "Occasionally empathy is considered to be the equivalent of intuition, leading to the setting up of a spurious contrast between (a) sentimental and subjective (i.e., nonscientific) intuitive-empathic reactions to the feelings of others; and